‘It is difficult;’ 9-month-old diagnosed with Leukemia, local family looking for donors

TROY — A local family is dealing with the unthinkable: Their only child is suffering from cancer.

News Center 7′s Taylor Robertson talked to a Troy Firefighter whose 9-month-old is battling Leukemia as he and his wife fight to keep him alive.

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“We’ve seen Christmas and New Year come and go in the hospital,” Patrick O’Neill said.

O’Neill and his wife Kimberly spent three years on I-V-F doing everything they could to get pregnant. On May 12, 2023, their first and only son Nolan was born.

“It was a little bit of a journey to get to this point,” O’Neill said.

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Then just five months later, they took Nolan to the emergency room for flu symptoms, but left with a Leukemia diagnosis.

“I’d say like the first month was pretty much a blur, it was a lot of information, that was a lot of people with a lot of doctors,” O’Neill said.

Since October, Kimberly and Nolan have pretty much lived at Dayton Children’s Hospital while he undergoes Chemotherapy.

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“This is cycle four and this was his last treatment yesterday. And then he has one more cycle left. Right now, he has been in remission since his first treatment, which has definitely been positive but that doesn’t mean he’s cured,” O’Neill said.

Nolan still has one more cycle of chemo to go.

“He will have to test negative for the leukemia monthly after his treatment for two years. If there is any instances of relapse then he would go into bone marrow and that’s definitely something that we would need,” O’Neill said.

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O’Neill and his wife are taking things day by day, and although working at the fire department has been a good distraction for him, he is feeling the strain.

“It is difficult to take care of other people when your child is sick too. It’s a sacrifice that we make for our kids,” O’Neill said.

The O’Neill’s have already hosted two blood drives, but they have another coming up.

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The third blood drive is on April 27 and they have a bone marrow Drive scheduled for Mar. 2.

The reason why they are looking for donors is because neither Patrick nor his wife are good matches for Nolan.

The virtual registration drive is for people to sign up as blood stem cell donors. You can request a test kit to see if you are a match to donate at this website.

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